sport news SIR CLIVE WOODWARD: Eddie Jones' England selection is all over the place trends now
Eddie Jones has picked another England team with all his fingers crossed.
After he named his side for the second Test with Australia in Brisbane on Saturday, Jones said: ‘This game is the perfect practice for the World Cup.’
Ridiculous. What does Eddie mean by that?
England are not on a development tour. You talk about the World Cup when it comes around. By constantly looking to the future and not your next game, it sets completely the wrong tone.
Eddie Jones has made four changes to the side that lost 30-28 to Australia in Perth
His comments have made the important second Test sound like a World Cup dress rehearsal
A three-match tour of Australia is as big as it gets. The same goes for Six Nations campaigns and, frankly, any time you run out for England. I don’t believe you can turn up at the World Cup and say, ‘Right, this is it’.
You learn to play under pressure and pull the best performances from your players by treating every opportunity as a World Cup final. That is how you grow and understand what your players can really do.
But no, Australia against England is now a dress rehearsal. That message seeps down to the players. It should be about today and not the future.
It’s not just England, other countries are at it, too. This is not what champion teams do. It’s a way for coaches to keep their jobs on four-year cycles, but constant talk of development and looking at the long-term picture has meant this England team have lost their edge both mentally and physically.
They need to toughen up — and quickly.
Jones has gone for broke with his selections including Jack van Poortvliet (pictured)
England got smashed by South Africa in the last World Cup final and since then we’ve had three years of nothing with this team because the focus has not been on winning the next game.
At the start of the week I urged Jones to go for broke with his selection for the second Test. He has done that with the choices of Jack van Poortvliet, Guy Porter and Tommy Freeman, but then watered everything down with one word — ‘practice’.
It will be tough to beat Australia in Brisbane but this is no vintage Wallabies team. This England side has the ability to win this weekend. The problem is we have yet another selection where Jones and everyone else with a passion for English rugby is just praying it goes well.
This is not an England team who will strike fear into the best sides in the world. On the face of it, there doesn’t appear to be any structure or method to the selection. One moment the back-line is about Joe Marchant and Joe Cokanasiga. The next, they’re nowhere to be seen and dropped for Porter and Freeman.
Joe Marchant (pictured) and Joe Cokansiga have lost out in the England merry-go-round
The way the team is selected is all over the place. I wonder what the players are making of the selection merry-go-round. Jones has more than 30 players in Australia and this will not be a happy group.
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